At the end of your rope coming up with a solution?
You are locked in a -foot room which sits on -foot stilts. There is an open window at the coner of the room, near the floor, with a strong hook cemented into the floor by the window. So if you had a -foot rope, you could tie one end to the hook, and climb down the rope to freedom. (The stilts are not accessible from the window. ) There are two -foot lengths of rope, each cemented into the ceiling, about foot apart, near the center of the ceiling. You are a strong, agile rope climber, good at tying knots,and you have a sharp knife. You have no other tools (not even clothes) . The rope is strong enough to hold your weight, but not if it is cut lengthwise. You can survive a fall of no more than feet.
Can you get out alive ( without "resorting to" "tying a feet rope to one end to the hook and swinging to the stilt and climbing down the stilt")?
This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try
refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and,
finally, (c)
loading the
non-javascript version of this page
. We're sorry about the hassle.
1 solution
Let's call the two ropes A and B.
First, you climp to the top of the A rope and cut the B rope leaving 1 or 2 feet hanging (holding it, so that it doesn't fall), enough for you to make some sort of a hook. Then you feed it through the hook, and tie one end around your waist while holding onto the other end. Now that your weight is supported by the hook you made and the rope B, you cut the rope A and tie it to the "free" end of the rope B. Then, holding to this bigger end of the rope B, lower yourself by letting it out. That way you lower yourself untill a few feet from the bottom of the room, from which height you can safely jump to the ground of the room.
The last step just requires you to tie your rope (which is more than 9 0 feet) to the strong hook cemented into the floor by the window and climb down to freedom.